


The People in Our Neighborhood

by Desmondasaurs



Series: The House on the Corner [2]
Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Dogs, Gen, M/M, Neighbor feud, New Neighbors, Older Characters, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2021-01-23 08:04:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,857
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21316882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Desmondasaurs/pseuds/Desmondasaurs
Summary: It was a day like any other... Well, no. They didn't get new neighbors every day, especially ones like this.
Relationships: David Starsky & Gran Torino, Ken Hutchinson & David Starsky, Ken Hutchinson/David Starsky
Series: The House on the Corner [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1044383
Comments: 14
Kudos: 17





	The People in Our Neighborhood

**Author's Note:**

> To all you wonderful people who have commented and kudo-ed my works in the past few days, thank you! I've been caught up in life for the past good while, and haven't had time to write, or post anything that I did happen to get finished. So, here you go!
> 
> I love you all!  
Des

_(September 9, 2015)_

0-0-0

The woman next-door rented out small ‘apartments’ in her home. One or two rooms in that big, big house with one bathroom per floor. Not exactly the Ritz by any means. But, for college kids, or young people in desperate times, you took what you could get in this city.

Hutch had brought up the topic of possibly renting out a room or two of their own over breakfast a few times. “It’d be a little income while we’re waiting to hear back from Beaumont and Trudeau.”

“I’m not worried about Beaumont. He’ll call back any day now. You know how he ate up the last one!”

Hutch’s face was a little pink, self-conscious and flattered, and warm inside because even after all these years it was still difficult for him to take praise for something that didn’t cost him blood, and pieces of his humanity.

“It was good! I really liked the part with all the canons.”

“The broadside salute?”

“Yeah! And you had the captains fightin’ up in the tangled rigging? That was terrific!”

“Kind of took that from when we were chasing that creep through the catwalks in Vegas, remember that?”

“Yeah, and he fell on that prize booth!” Starsky grinned at him; “How’d you get all that swashbucklin’ out of us chasing a weirdo around a catwalk?”

“It’s called artistic license, it means—Well, you know what it means.”

Ziggy whined from under the table, his collar jangling as he scratched furiously.

Hutch sighed, shoulders sagging; “You forgot to put that stuff on him yesterday. I-I told you he had fleas! _And_ he was on the _bed_ last night!” He pushed back from the table, “I’m gonna have to put off a flea bomb!”

Starsky bobbed a shoulder toward his ear sheepishly. “I forgot… Look, I’ll do it now.”

“Don’t do it in here! They’ll all jump off him and get in the carpet! Take him outside!”

Starsky rolled his eyes and collected the tube from the junk drawer by the sink, made a few soft clicking noises and patted his leg to call Ziggy to him. “Come on! I know you hate it, but it’s gotta happen. You know how Hutch is about fleas.”

As soon as Ziggy saw the green tube in Starsky’s hand he darted away, trying to hide in the rose bushes, or under the grill. Scurrying away even as Starsky called and pleaded with him.

“Look, I’ll give you some bologna! You like bologna!” It wasn’t like he could chase the dog down. Ziggy was half greyhound for cripes sake. You don’t chase greyhounds, you turn around and wait for them to circle the globe… Or in this case the back yard.

There was a noise, the groan of a truck engine, and Starsky looked up just in time to see the next-door neighbor step off her porch and wave down a moving van, motioning to the short side drive like one of those traffic controllers on an airport runway.

The van pulled to a stop and out climbed a young woman, mid-twenties, brown hair, brown eyes, olive skin. She looked nervous, reached back into the van and pulled a wailing child into her arms. The little girl was wearing a polka dot blouse and white leggings, had kicked off one shoe and was screaming like the world was ending.

Ziggy didn’t like the noise, crouched and hid in Starsky’s shadow, watching the small girl where she was screeching and writhing in her mother’s arms. Starsky used the moment to get the flea medicine on the dog, muttering about the musty smell of it, then patted Ziggy’s neck; “It’s OK, boy—that’s it. It’s OK.”

Hutch stuck his head out the greenhouse door, nosy, with a news-paper in one hand, one of his green, fruity, smoothie-bullshit things in the other. He gave the girl and her mother an appraising look, then released a sharp whistle, calling Ziggy inside to escape the noise.

Martha Edgewood, the house owner next door, was standing in the drive, looking disapproving; “Is she _quite_ alright?”

The woman tried to shift her daughter to the other arm without dropping her; “She’s just having a tantrum. Hasn’t had her nap yet. I-I’m sorry, she’ll calm down in a few minutes.”

Martha pursed her lips and didn’t offer to help, just handed over the key to the room. “I do room inspections once a month, rent is due on the first, no later than the third. Parking is on the street, I’m not responsible for damage to your vehicle, and I don’t tolerate smoking, pets, drinking, drugs, or loud parties.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“The neighbors on both sides of us are over fifty, so I expect the noise level to be at a minimum any given day,” She gave the little girl a sour, disapproving glare. “Nobody likes a noisy neighbor.”

Starsky threw his arms up above his head and released a loud yell, a groan that could have been heard a half block away. Stretched exaggeratedly to pop his back, and started singing to himself at volume. “I like New York in June, how about you! I like a Gershwin tune, how about _you!”_

Martha went quiet, and much to Starsky’s amusement the little girl’s screaming softened. He could feel the old woman’s glare on the back of his head as he improvised a little soft-shoe and started collecting Ziggy’s scattered toys. Kicked a rubber ball so it bounced off the side of the house with a loud squeak.

Inside Ziggy jumped into the greenhouse window and barked excitedly. Hutch poked his head outside again brows curled down in disapproval, snapped, his voice low with annoyance like a whip crack; “Starsky!”

He tried valiantly not to laugh and give away the game, “Coming, coming, my Liege!”

Hutch rolled his eyes and disappeared again.

Martha Edgewood was a hyped up old dingbat in Starsky’s opinion, and he enjoyed annoying her when at all possible. Either with his large lawn decorations, summer cookouts, or working on his cars. Sometimes even, when the mood struck him, he would catch Hutch in the yard and start an argument about something. Just to watch the old woman’s face turn red in indignation.

The greenhouse door snapped shut behind him; “You sound just like Dobey, you know that? Brings back memories!”

“One of these days,” Hutch said under his breath, dragging Starsky away from the window with a fist in his shirt front, “She’s going to call in a complaint on you.”

“Let her. I’ll even drive the two us down to Metro so she can file it with the chief of police. It’ll do me some good to see Minnie again. We can reminisce!”

“You’re hopeless.”

“Hey, we were here first! It took me ten years to get this neighborhood straightened out! If she don’t like it, she can go back to Nova Scotia, or wherever the hell she came from!”

“Just because we’ve been here longer doesn’t mean you have to be such a jerk!”

“She tried to arrest my dog!” He pointed at Ziggy, “He hasn’t hurt anybody, and there she was calling animal control on him!” His arms waved around; “If that’s not bad enough, she complained about the house! OUR HOUSE, Hutch! This—this isn’t a development, we don’t have a home owner’s association. It may be historical, but there’s no charter sayin’ I’m not allowed to decorate for the holidays! Or enjoy my back yard!”

Hutch patiently continued with his news-paper, “I think the complaint was that you were out in the back yard putting off fireworks without pants.”

“It was New Years!”

“You didn’t have on _pants!”_

“And whose fault was that!”

Hutch’s face went red, “I’m not having this argument with you again,” And he disappeared through the back door into the kitchen, Ziggy following along in hopes of getting some toast.

Starsky shuffled around the ferns, palms, and Bonsai; he peeked out through the open vent, caught sight of the young woman and little girl still standing there, listening to Edgewood yammer on, ticking off things on her arthritic fingers. “No toys in the yard, no riding toys in the driveway, no kiddie pools, no sand boxes, no jungle gyms—”

“Why not just say ‘no children unless they’re for eating’, ya’ horrid old witch,” Starsky muttered.

The little girl lifted her head and met Starsky’s eyes through the lenses of her blue rubber framed glasses, snuffed wetly and wiped her nose on the shoulder of her mother’s jacket.

Edgewood ruffled and raised her voice; “Mister Starky! I am having a private conversation with _my_ tenant, and I had hoped you would remember that not all of us are as hearing impaired as you are!”

Starsky ducked, tried to hide himself amid the plants and pretend he was a fichus. One of those you see in doctor’s offices. The varnished stick impaled with fake greenery.

Ah, jeez. Hutch was gonna be pissed! Edgewood would probably send him a Letter now. One of the hand written ones on her expensive east coast stationary without a stamp. Because ‘polite neighbors’ didn’t publicize their issues. He was gonna get an earful later, he knew it!

Edgewood eventually finished her preaching, shrugged her purse higher on her shoulder and sauntered off to her little beige compact car with her nose in the air.

Starsky stayed in the green house long enough to watch the young woman begin directing the mover on where to leave her boxes, and set her daughter down with a coloring book and box of crayons on the porch so she could move her things inside.

The girl sprawled herself on her belly and began scribbling in the book, kicking her feet in the air behind her.

The mover unloaded a dozen or so boxes, the disassembled frame of a bed, and accompanying mattress. A child’s desk and chair, and an old steamer trunk. Not a whole lot when it came to worldly possessions.

Starsky expected the mover to stay, help drag all the boxes and bulky things up the stairs, but instead the man climbed into the truck and left the heavy lifting to the young woman.

It wasn’t very chivalrous, wasn’t even polite to leave a young single mother to haul her belongings up two flights of stairs on her own. Starsky turned from the window with a sour feeling in his stomach. He peered down into the terrarium he’d constructed from an old ten-gallon fish tank Layered with peat moss and top soil. The big female Arizona flicked her spikes at him when he lifted the screen lid and spritzed the caladium she was perched on so she could have a fresh drink, and shook out some black flies from a jar and snapped the lid back on so they couldn't escape. “I’ll see if I can get you some moths or somethin’ later, Suze.”

The kitchen door squeaked and Hutch came out with his watering can, went about his noontide ritual. “Hello, Plants!”

“Can you believe that?” Starsky was still intently watching the neighbors.

“What did you do to the amaryllis?” Hutch picked up the pot and examined the slightly wilted looking green stalks. “Did you water it last night? I told you to leave it alone! Now it’s water logged and—"

“Hutch, come on. Look at that!” He motioned toward the opposite vent, the glass slats allowing just enough visibility for Hutch to see the poor young woman trying to wrestle the little desk inside, while warning her daughter out of the way.

“Where’d the mover go?”

“He left.”

“Oh,” Hutch turned back to the amaryllis, “Is this the white one or the red one?”

Starsky rolled his eyes and shoved out the greenhouse door.

Hutch shook his head and put the pot down, “Not going to follow him—Not gonna! If he wants to go throwing boxes around and give himself a hernia, I’m not gonna stop him. And he’s not gonna get any sympathy from me,” He glanced up in time to see Starsky dragging a lawn chair toward the fence and raised his voice; “Oh for, God Sake! Just go around like a normal human being! You’re not twenty-five anymore!” He rolled his eyes and slammed out of the greenhouse, stomping over and grabbing his partner’s arm as he was about to mount the lawn furniture like a goddamned step ladder. “I’m not dragging you to the emergency room because you’ve done something ridiculous _again!”_

“If I remember correctly,” Starsky allowed himself to be dragged away, “You were the last one to go to the emergency room because of something ridiculous… Or did you forget the hole you put in our bedroom ceiling with that swing of yours—”

Hutch pulled him close and snarled; “Shut up or I will end you.”

“I love it when you get all flustered—”

The garden gate at the side of their house was a few inches taller than the fence. White, with a wide curved panel at the top on which Hutch had painted a sun and moon in golds and blues, with a few stars straying off to each side. Starsky liked to claim Hutch had never really gotten over his budding career as underaged hippie, back all those years ago on his college campus. Sitting in circles listening to the messages of peace and balance and enlightenment, when a person was one with their surroundings, free love, free living, and funny cigarettes.

Martha Edgewood had no ‘garden gate’. Just a continuation of her fence. White pickets with sharp tops like the teeth of a Venus Flytrap, ready to snap up anyone who dared enter; and like a flytrap for tempting bait, her back yard was perfectly manicured and maintained. Beautiful, and lush with a big oak for shade. It would have been perfect for a tire swing.

She threw a fit if Starsky jumped the fence to go fetch back Ziggy when the dog went after a frisbee and got lost, or when the smoke from his barbecue grill wafted toward her foxglove and climbing ivy.

Starsky sometimes wanted to purposefully throw Ziggy’s tennis ball over the fence, just hoping the dog would leave a brown, stinky surprise for dear Martha near her campanula.

Hutch’s opinion on the matter was simple. If ever there was a fence, over which the grass was supposedly greener, it was Martha Edgewood’s.

When she’d moved in, Hutch had welcomed her to the neighborhood as politely as he could, while trying to corral Starsky away from the maritime memorabilia she was sorting through on her front lawn, including a seven-foot-long, five-foot-tall fully rigged and remote-control sail boat.

Starsky wanted that boat.

Martha Edgewood wanted to have Starsky committed. 

The boat had been her late husband’s, and she had it permanently mounted to the mantle in the den of her new home. Painted the house in whites and grays, and dolled up the outside like a Gingerbread Victorian one may see sitting along the coast at Cape Cod. Treated Starsky and Hutch’s presence as an inconvenience she must endure to retain her saint-like exterior.

Hutch, though civil with the woman when face to face, had choice words in mind when he thought of her. As much as he and Starsky may disagree, as much as they argued, bickered, and occasionally tried to maul one another; Hutch loved him, and didn’t take kindly to people who were overtly, or even covertly rude to Starsky. Being in Edgewood’s driveway gave Hutch an illicit little thrill… Part of him wanted to see if he could coax Ziggy into taking a whizz on one of the woman’s little light house shaped lawn ornaments.

The little girl was watching them warily from behind her glasses, once she realized they were continuing to approach even though her mother wasn’t there she dropped her crayon and ran inside shouting; “MAAAAAAM!”

Hutch felt a little tug on his sleeve, wondered absently when he’d become the one being pulled along, and waited by Starsky’s side until the young woman appeared in the doorway holding her daughter on her hip.

“Can I help you?” She had a soft, low voice and brown eyes. Looked between the two men with practiced caution.

Hutch’s mouth came open, but Starsky spoke first;

“Hi, I’m Dave Starsky… this is my partner Ken Hutchinson. We—uh—we live next door,” He motioned over his shoulder to where Ziggy was on one of the greenhouse tables sticking his nose out a window slat and whining pitifully in their absence.

The young woman seemed to relax a little, “I’m Sarah Stevens… This is Kelly.”

Hutch waved nonchalantly at the boxes and mattress sitting against the porch. “We noticed the mover didn’t stay to help.”

Sarah glanced around, blushed a little; “Yeah… I—He was kind of doing me a favor, he had to get back to work.”

“Ms. Edgewood has you on the third floor, right?” Hutch motioned to the empty window overlooking the street. “We can at least help you get your bed up there. No sense in you hurting yourself doing it alone.”

Sarah looked taken aback; “Oh, no—no, I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“It’s no trouble—” Starsky was smiling broadly at Kelly, seemed enamored with her immediately. He’d always had a soft spot for kids. His heart too big for his chest.

“We don’t want to intrude, or anything… Just—You look like you could use some help,” Hutch could see the unease in the young woman’s face. Wondered what had put it there. This was more than just a young mother being approached by strange new neighbors.

Sarah took a long look at them, then turned to glance up at the stairs behind her, and to the mattress and box spring. “Yeah,” She hefted Kelly a little higher onto her hip; “Yeah, that’d be nice, thanks.”

Sarah took her daughter into the house and told her to play quietly and not touch anything in the downstairs reading room.

Hutch tried not to look around too closely, but Starsky ogled the interior. This house hadn’t been for sale when they’d purchased the house on the corner. It had been in heirs and only saw life once a week when someone came and mowed the grass. Edgewood had moved in only five years before, and threw their semi-quiet life into a tailspin. Neither Starsky nor Hutch had seen inside the house past the front parlor when they’d welcomed Martha to the neighborhood.

“She painted the cabinets!” Hutch muttered, “And put carpet over the hard wood—What a shame.”

Kelly was on her back in the reading room, barely visible from the back staircase, swishing her arms and legs through the plush weave of the carpeting.

Sarah was quiet until she was out of earshot of her daughter, and even then, spoke at a whisper. “Have you been in the neighborhood long?”

“About sixteen years?” Hutch said, hefting the headboard and footboard under his arms, behind him Starsky had the bed rails one on each shoulder like fishing poles.

“Twenty-one years, come July.”

Hutch bobbed his head in agreement, saw a small smile grow on Sarah’s face.

“How long have you been partners?”

Hutch snorted. “Depends on your definition of ‘partners’.”

Sarah’s brows drew down. “I thought—”

“We’re retired police officers,” Starsky nudged his glasses higher on his nose. “Known one another since the late sixties—”

_“Known_ one another, since seventy-nine,” Hutch said softly, lowering his chin.

Sarah chuckled; “Longer than I’ve been around then.”

“Ah, jeez—Don’t make him feel old, he’ll start in on his back hurting again—” Starsky rolled his eyes.

“At least I didn’t lie about my age on facebook.”

Starsky turned slowly and blew a raspberry at him.

Sarah seemed much more relaxed once they reached the vacant room. Settled the pieces of the bed against the far wall and propped her hands on her hips.

“Why don’t you start puttin’ it together. Hutch’n me’ll get the box-spring and mattress—”

“One at a time,” Hutch prodded him in the back as he walked away. “There’s no way you’re dragging that mattress up those stairs alone.”

“Just watch me—Hey, lookit that! I didn’t know Edgewood had a piano!”

“Must be for looks, not function. Much like that head of yours,” Hutch muttered, and their voices faded out as they descended.

Sarah crept halfway down the stairs and called for her daughter, relieved when the girl came quickly scuttling up the stairs. “Why don’t you play on the landing here where I can see you?”

“Why?”

“So I can make sure you’re safe.”

“Why?”

“Because this is a big house and I’m lonely.”

“Why?”

“Kelly?”

She shifted back and forth on her feet, trying not to grin.

“Are you a _Wei_maraner?”

The little nose crinkled up and she shook her head.

“If I give you your baby doll will you come play on the landing where I can see you?”

“Whhhhy?”

Sarah grabbed at her with a little playful growl, giggling as Kelly made yipping noises like a puppy.

By the time Starsky and Hutch made it back upstairs with the box spring Kelly was elbows deep in a box marked ‘Toys’ and arranging them in the closet.

“We compromised…” Sarah said, giving the girl a wary look; “She likes the carpet.”

“It’s squishy,” Kelly said, digging her little fingers into it.

“Reminds me of that shag in my first apartment,” Starsky chuckled, “But beige is a lot more attractive than blood orange.”

“It was red.” 

Starsky glare at him dangerously; “Don’t start.”

The mattress took a little more work. Huffing and puffing, it wobbled around like a living animal.

“What’s the matter with this thing!” Starsky grumbled. “Full of eels or something?”

“It’s one of those new innerspring mattress,” Hutch was breathing heavy, shoving from farther down the steps. “Memory foam on top—”

“Ours didn’t do this, and it’s a heck of a lot bigger.”

“Ours came in a box, mushbrain… We hauled the box upstairs, pulled it out and let it re-inflate. Haven’t moved it since. Don’t you remember moving my old bed?”

“I remember it being significantly easier.”

“I remember us being significantly younger—”

“Shut up.”

Sarah appeared at the top of the stairs and came down to help. Managed to hold the middle of the mattress still while they moved it up the last flight.

Kelly was still sitting in the closet, humming ‘lullaby and goodnight’ to a toy robot she’d wrapped in a big floral scarf the color of a fresh beet.

They got the mattress on the bed and Starsky dropped to sit in the floor, sprawled himself on his back and fumbled in his pocket for an inhaler. Hutch chuckled and motioned at him weakly. “Wanna share a hit of that, Jack?”

“Sure, knock yourself out,” He tossed it in Hutch’s direction when he was finished and watched Sarah maneuver the bed into the corner, then stand back with her hands on her hips.

Suddenly a little face was hovering over him and Kelly was humming, something Disney sounding and wrapping the scarf she’d swaddled her robot in around Starsky’s head. Her eyes lit up and she tugged carefully the long spiraling strands of his hair, face splitting in a broad grin.

“You look like Bubbe!”

Hutch wheezed out a laugh.

“Kelly, that isn’t nice!” Sarah said sternly.

Starsky waved at her, “It’s fine,” He pulled the scarf tight under his chin. “What is it? The glasses or the hair?”

Hutch watched them with a smile on his face. Heard the little girl mumble something while trying not to laugh and Starsky grinned.

“Yeah?” Starsky said, tugging the ends of the scarf under his chin. “You really think so?”

Kelly grinned broadly; “Yeah!”

He lifted his head and wagged his eyebrows at Hutch; “What’d’you think? Does it suit me?”

Hutch threatened him with a rigid finger. “You start wearing bandanas again I’m leaving you.”

He pulled it off immediately. “Sorry, kid. You heard the boss.”

Kelly turned to her mother with a grin. “I like him, he’s funny.”

Sarah had taken a seat on the corner of the bed and was leaning with her elbows on her knee, watching her daughter with a fond, loving smile.

“Hear that?” Starsky’s chest puffed out proudly, “She thinks I’m funny!”

“She’s only just met you, give her time,” He pulled his partner to his feet, eyes rolling when Starsky flipped the scarf onto Hutch’s head in turn.

“Awww, lookin good there, buddy!”

Kelly cackled, even Sarah chuckled gently.

“Can we get back to the task at hand?”

“Jeez, you really do look like your mother!” Starsky’s expression was vaguely horrified and he yanked the scarf off and handed it back to the little girl. “I’m gonna have nightmares!” He straightened Hutch’s flyaway hair with gentle fingers, “You got your mom’s eyes, and her mouth—and that little vein that stands out on your forehead when you get angry!”

“Starsky?”  


“Yeah?”

“There are more boxes down stairs. Are we going to help this nice lady or are you going to continue making yourself uncomfortable by picking out exactly how I look like my mother.”

Starsky nodded; “Temper’s all yours, that’s a relief,” He turned on his heel and jogged toward the stairs.

Hutch took a deep breath and gave Sarah an apologetic tip of his head.

Sarah followed him down, once she was sure Kelly was safe and happy playing with her toys inside the closet. Kelly had said triumphantly that it was her room, could she sleep in there that night, please please please?

“Don’t worry,” Hutch said when Sarah voiced her concern over her daughter wanting to sleep in a closet. “We have a walk-in closet… Starsky wanted to sleep in there too.”

“It has a window!” Starsky said, by way of an excuse.

“You two are adorable.”

“We’ve been called many things, but ‘adorable’ is a new one,” Hutch stepped out of the way as Starsky jogged past making marching band noises, with a large box in his arms.

It didn’t take long at all to get the boxes upstairs, two more trips and Kelly was lying on her side cuddling her robot baby, fast asleep, and Sarah had relaxed enough that Hutch thought maybe he’d imagined the unease in her gaze when they’d first approached. She shared information sparingly, she and Kelly had moved because her mother had passed away from a sudden stroke, and the rent on the apartment had been too high for Sarah to maintain. She motioned to the boxes, “Other than this, we’ve got a small storage unit. It was less expensive monthly. When I graduate I’ll be able to afford a better place, this is just temporary,” The way she said it made Hutch think she didn’t know if that would end up true or not.

Starsky, on the other hand, had won over Kelly without effort. The little girl, woke from her short nap not long later and began showing off all her toys, and coloring books. The toy cars she said were a family, including a mommy, daddy, and baby car. The building blocks that were also a puzzle. The robot that was her Baby Doll, his name was Chucky and he could throw the baby bottle Kelly balanced on his hands when she pressed a button on his back, and his eyes lit up when he ‘cried’. Then there was the teddy bear, made from desert cammo. Kelly leaned close and said, “The army ladies made him for me, from Daddy John’s uniform. So, he’ll be with me forever.”

“Daddy John?” Starsky blinked curiously at Kelly, then her mother.

Sarah nodded, seemed hurt, but it was an old hurt. “He was Kyle’s best friend… When Kyle went—“ She hesitated, “—When Kyle went away, John stepped in, moved us into his apartment and took care of us. He was killed two years ago. He was more of a father to Kelly than Kyle ever was.”

Hutch whispered his condolences.

Kelly made the bear wave at Starsky.

“Well, as much as I know he’d love to sit here and listen to Kelly describe the family dynamics of matchbox cars for the rest of the evening, it’s getting late, and we should probably disappear before Martha comes back.”

Starsky shivered, as if the old woman’s name was a curse.

“Does she not like you two?”

“She tolerates me,” Hutch said, “But—”

“The term 'Nemesis' comes to mind,” Starsky said under his breath. “She’s my mortal enemy!” He took the little Lego Darth Vader Kelly handed him and began a duel with Kelly’s Luke Skywalker. Though Luke had Legolas’ head on his tiny plastic shoulders.

“This isn’t a comic book, Starsk, you’re not Ironman.”

Starsky poked out his tongue, then turned to Kelly; “Raincheck on the duel?”

Kelly narrowed her eyes behind her glasses and leveled a tiny little finger at him, like she’d seen Hutch do earlier; “Tomorrow. High noon!”

“You got it, sweetheart!”

0-0-0

0-0-0

0-0-0


End file.
